Carrying the Burden: Perspectives of African American Pastors on Peer Support for People with Cancer

For African Americans facing advanced cancer, churches are trusted sources of support and ideal settings to improve access to supportive care. The Support Team model enhances community support for practical, emotional, and spiritual caregiving. We report on focus groups with pastors of 23 Black Churches and explore their perspective on the Support Team model for church members with cancer. Pastors describe the needs of church members facing cancer from a holistic perspective and recognize opportunities for synergistic faith–health collaboration. The results of this study indicate potential benefits of the Support Team model in Black Churches to reduce silent suffering among individuals facing cancer.     

The black community's reactions to the 1992 los angeles riot

This article is based on field (street) interviews with a sample of 227 black community members living and/or working in South Central Los Angeles at the time of the 1992 riot. The interview instrument comprises 20 questions designed to (1) ascertain the reactions and feelings of black community members to the riot; and (2) compare a sample of black participants in the riot with nonparticipants. The participant group was found to be more frequently younger males with less education and lower income, and they were more likely to have arrest records prior to the riot than nonparticipants. Though reactions and feelings were mixed and contradictory, both groups reported an overall acceptance of the disorders. Differentials in reactions were in degree rather than in kind. Most objected to the riot in principle but concluded that collective violence “pays off.” The preriot structural facilitators (poverty, relative deprivation, unemployment, police brutality, racial discrimination, and negative police‐community relations) were similar to those found in the riot literature. Whatever the participants’ reasons and justifications for rioting might be, they present themselves as worthy protesters and freedom fighters. Unless their message is heeded and acted upon by ameliorating their adverse social, economic, and political conditions, similar riots are likely to occur.     

Subliminal understanding of negation: Unconscious control by subliminal processing of word pairs

A series of five experiments investigated the extent of subliminal processing of negation. Participants were presented with a subliminal instruction to either pick or not pick an accompanying noun, followed by a choice of two nouns. By employing subjective measures to determine individual thresholds of subliminal priming, the results of these studies indicated that participants were able to identify the correct noun of the pair – even when the correct noun was specified by negation. Furthermore, using a grey-scale contrast method of masking, Experiment 5 confirmed that these priming effects were evidenced in the absence of partial awareness, and without the effect being attributed to the retrieval of stimulus–response links established during conscious rehearsal.     

Bicultural self‐defense in consumer contexts: Self‐protection motives are the basis for contrast versus assimilation to cultural cues

Studies of social judgment found that the way bicultural individuals respond to cultural cues depends on their cultural identity structure. Biculturals differ in the degree to which they represent their two cultural identities as integrated (vs. nonintegrated), which is assessed as high (vs. low) bicultural identity integration (BII), respectively. High BII individuals assimilate to cultural cues, yet low BII individuals contrast to these cues. The current studies reveal that this dynamic extends to consumer behavior and elucidate the underlying psychological mechanism. We found that high (low) BII individuals exhibit assimilation (contrast) responses to cultural cues in consumer information‐seeking and choice. Furthermore, the pattern occurs with both subliminal (study 1) and supraliminal (study 2) cultural primes, and is mediated by the experience of identity exclusion threat (study 2). Results suggest that the interactive effect of BII and cultural cues arises from nonconscious defense against the exclusion of a cultural identity. Implications for self‐protective processes, automatic behavior, and marketing are discussed.     

The Draw-A-Person Test and Process-Reactive Schizophrenia

The Draw-A-Pcrson test was administered to three matched groups of 32 male Ss each: reactive schizophrenics, process schizophrenics, and normal control subjects. Patients were rated for prognosis using the Premorbid Subscale of the Phillips Scale. Drawings were rated by two judges on 80 diagnostic signs culled from the literature. No signs were found to significantly differentiate reactive and process schizophrenics, and only three signs significantly differentiated normals from schizophrenics. It was concluded that a sign approach to the DAP is insensitive to the reaction-process dimension of schizophrenia, and of only limited value in differentiating between normals and schizophrenics in general.     

Tumor Locus Moderates Anxiety Symptoms in a Pediatric Neuro-Oncologic Sample

Despite the prevalence of pediatric Central Nervous System (CNS) solid tumors, little is understood about patients' disease-related anxiety experience. Data from 25 remitted pediatric CNS tumor patients posttreatment were collected. Significant symptoms of anxiety were reported by 32% of patients. MRI studies showed all anxious patients had right cortical tumors or left cerebellar tumors. Confound analyses suggest these results are not better accounted for by demographic, disease, or treatment variables. These results evidence the risk some pediatric neuro-oncologic patients face for developing significant anxiety symptoms.     

Micro-mechanical measurements of fracture toughness of bismuth embrittled copper grain boundaries

Measuring the fracture properties of single grain boundaries has until now required macroscopic bi-crystals which are expensive and not always available. We describe a method for fracture testing using micro-cantilevers, manufactured using focussed ion beam machining and tested using a nanoindenter. We have used the method to measure the fracture toughness of selected grain boundaries in bismuth-embrittled copper. This technique is applicable to grain boundaries in other brittle polycrystalline samples for which large bi-crystals cannot be produced for conventional testing.     

The moderating effects of contamination sensitivity on state affect and information processing: Examination of disgust specificity

Although contamination sensitivity has been implicated in several disorders, there is a paucity of research examining the influence of this trait on various outcomes. Accordingly, the present study examined the extent to which individual differences in contamination sensitivity moderated state affect in response to a mood induction and subsequent information processing biases, as assessed by a lexical decision task (LDT). It was hypothesised that the moderating effects of contamination sensitivity would be specific to disgust responding to a negative but not positive mood induction, and to reaction times to disgust and fear compared to happy words on the LDT. The findings were largely consistent with this hypothesis, as contamination sensitivity predicted increased disgust and arousal to the negative mood induction. Contamination sensitivity was also a better predictor of reaction times to disgust and fear words than happy words. However, the moderating effect of contamination sensitivity on reaction times on the LDT was not mediated by its effects on response to the negative mood induction. Implications of these findings for conceptualising the role of contamination sensitivity and its association with disgust in specific disorders are discussed.     

A Critical Review of the Clinical Effects of Therapeutic Irradiation Damage to the Brain: The Roots of Controversy

We critically examined the damaging affects of therapeutic irradiation by comparing results from cross-disciplinary studies of early- and late-delayed radiotherapy effects. Focus is attained by concentrating on clinical treatment issues (volume of brain, dose, timing of effects, age, modality types, and stereotactic treatment techniques), rather than on methodological means or problems, which is necessary to understand the mechanisms and characteristics of radiotherapy-induced behavioral dysfunction including cognition. We make observations and hypotheses about the actual risks from radiotherapy that could be informative in the treatment decision process, and which may lessen the concerns of some patients and their families about the risks they take when receiving radiation. Conditions that predispose to radiation injury are reviewed: (1) higher doses even to part of the brain versus lower doses to the whole brain, (2) combined treatment modalities, (3) malignancy itself, (4) radiation early during postnatal brain development, and (5) late-delayed effects (more than 3 years posttreatment). Current neurocognitive frameworks for understanding cognitive change over time in children and adults are summarized, along with the literature on effects of brain tumors and treatment on depression. No studies have as yet identified candidate brain regions that are more sensitive to radiotherapy. Two studies have provided early, preliminary evidence for a specific vulnerability of visual attention/memory to the early stage of late radiation damage. Furthermore, radiation effects appear severe only in a minority of patients. Risk is related to direct and indirect effects of cancer type, concurrent clinical factors, and premorbid risk factors.